


Ink Quisition

by CaptainXeno



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alternate Timelines, Angst, Awkward Sexual Situations, But only slightly alternate, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Racism, Canon-Typical Violence, Canon-typical bullying, Dialogue Heavy, Drabble That Got WAY out of control, Eventual Relationships, Eventual resolved romantic tension, F/F, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gossip, Happy Ending, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Marriage Proposal, Mention of Death, Not Beta Read, Off-scene Sera/F!Lavellan, One Shot, Pranks and Practical Jokes, Romance, Rumor campaign, Rumors, Same-Sex Marriage, Same-sex relationships, Sappy, Scandal, Sexual Tension, Tattoo-positive, Tattoos, UST, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Varric Tethras Writes, Varric Tethras is a Good Friend, Varric Writes FriendFic and Saves The Day, Written on a phone, mean pranks, not edited, slight AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-17
Updated: 2016-06-17
Packaged: 2018-07-15 14:43:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7226626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaptainXeno/pseuds/CaptainXeno
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Inquisitor is off doing her job in the Western Approach and the Hissing Wastes, leaving her trusted advisors and friends to hold down various forts, keeps, and camps. </p><p>Varric finds himself at Griffon Wing Keep with Sera, Dorian, and Cullen. It's hot, sunburny,  covered in sand, everything is poisonous, or venomous,  and wants to kill them.</p><p> And worst of all, the mood of the camp is turning ugly and mean as vicious rumors and gossip start getting passed around. The target for the worst of the trash talk is Varric's favorite Altus, Dorian Pavus. It's just talk and a few mean pranks at first, but things start to escalate.</p><p>It's like some of the bad times in Kirkwall all over again,  and Varric isn't having it! He figures if you can fight fire with fire, maybe you can fight stories with better stories. Varric to the rescue!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ink Quisition

**Author's Note:**

> This. Was. A. Drabble.
> 
> No really. It was. It was going to be a few hundred words with a punchline. 
> 
> And then I let Varric take the mic.  
> Guess I should have known what would happen.
> 
> So if the pacing seems weird or anything seems off, blame the mouthy dwarf, and then blame me for having no control over my crazy life.
> 
> It shouldn't even be called procrastination anymore - more like "duct taping myself to the train tracks."
> 
> Note:
> 
> "Karrak" is just the Dwarva word for "War" and I headcanon it as an Orzammar game close enough to Chess that it can be played on a human-style board.
> 
> DIY "doorbell" on a tent is headcanon but also drawn from my IRL experiences with extended camping, festivals, burns, and similar. Soda can with a few chunks of gravel works well.
> 
> I couldn't find any info on an actual name for Thedas's larger moon, nor any world building data on it's orbit. So the info given in story would be accurate for Earth's moon during full phase, late summer, northern hemisphere, in my part of the U.S. Sorry, guys, best I could do. 
> 
> I picture Cullen as being pretty aware of stuff like that as Commander because he'd have to be to function out in the field. There's no watches, alarm clocks, road signs, or GPS.
> 
> Tattoo traditions are my headcanon except for the prep details, which are Zevran's adorable lies from DA:Origins. Who was that masked Antivan tattoo artist, anyway? I wonder...

Ink Quisition:

***

Varric never intentionally eavesdropped. So he told himself. He thought of it more as being accosted by stories too good to pass up. The smithy at Griffon Wing was shady, at least, not much hotter than the rest of the blasted desert, and nobody would look for him in a place where actual manual labor happened. 

Besides, sooner or later everyone stopped by the smithy, the baths, and the cook tents. So, any time he wanted to know what was going on, he emulated a good hunter setting up a blind; parked himself on an upturned crate, pulled up a half barrel as a desk, and looked busy answering fan letters. This hot afternoon in late spring, he’d actually gotten distracted by a particularly steamy and personal missive. Lots of material there for scenes. In books, that was. Scenes in books, of course, he reminded himself.

He lifted his quill, dipped it, and underlined a few passages that had potential. The two closest workers had been arguing, in friendly but intense tones, for the last few minutes. 

“You can’t have!” The blonde smith’s apprentice from Redcliffe scoffed at her friend, loudly enough that Varric’s concentration was broken.

“I did, though,” her work partner retorted, and handed her a crate of broken scraps of salvaged metal parts.

The older girl dumped them out on a table made from planks laid over sawhorses. The clash of tumbled metal made Varric wince and rub his temples. He’d won a few too many drinks in rounds of Liar’s Dice the previous night.

The apprentice began sorting through them, separating steel from pot metal. “Right,” she mocked her friend, “And what were you doing exactly, that you got a good look at the Vint’s arse?”

The teenaged courier gave her a surly look. “Hey, there. Watch it with talk like that. It weren’t no sort of thing.”

The metal sorter snorted and shook her head. “Dennar Margett! I never figured you to get judgy about whether a man likes danglies or innies in the breeches of a bedmate.”

Dennar, as the boy was apparently named, had the decency to flush a bit, cheekbones and ears darkening deeper sunburn red. “Nah, it ain’t like that neither. It’s that he’s a Vint. They call on demons and slit throats for spells. Harritt told me some things would run your blood cold.” He brushed past Varric to hoist another splintery wooden crate of scraps and haul it to the sorting table.

The older girl laughed. “I almost wish summat would cool my blood about now. So you didn’t really see nothin’, then.”

They each took an end of the crate and upended it with twin grunts of effort. Clashing metal rolled and slid. Varric pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed, then slit open the wax seal of another letter with his dagger and pretened to read it.

Dennar sighed and rolled his eyes. “Did so. Corbin n’ Wyrda n’ them, came up with a good joke. Figured ta find out who this mystery lover is. Back at Skyhold, th’ bleedin’ Vint always meets ‘im in the fancy quarters where we foot slogger types can’t go. An’ out here he’s always sneakin’ him into his tent when the watch changes or some such. C’mon, Anna, you got to admit that’s odd.”

The apprentic shrugged, callused fingers picking with the speed of habit through the assorted parts. “What is this, suppose?”she mused, holding up a few bronze colored gears attached to a broken crank. “Anyhow, what’s so odd about wanting privacy. Bet you’ve bedded a few people you’d not want to parade past the whole camp.”

“Right, but listen,” Dennar objected. He grasped the crank with a pair of tongs while Anna gave it a couple smacks with a small hammer to pop it loose from the gear assembly. “So we real quiet-like loosened all the Vint’s tent stakes when the late watch changed, right? Because the wind always picks up brisk just before dawn. Of course the whole thing comes down in a pile like wet laundry. Shoulda heard him curse! Mean sounding language, Vint is.”

Varric smirked, and rubbed his chin thoughtfully to hide his expression. Dorian had blamed Sera for the prank with his tent. In retaliation, he’d put sand in her wineskin.

The resulting prank war had escalated until the Commander had to step in. Not by ordering a stop to it, oddly. Instead, he’d put a vial of blood lotus juice with just a splash of vinegar in the water of all the wash basins of the Inner Circle’s camp. Just about everyone, Varric included, had spent the next day or so with hands and faces dyed an odd shade of pale purple-blue. Not just faces. Other bits too. Or so rumor had claimed.

“Nice one, Curly,” Varric had muttered the next time their paths crossed on the way to the baths, “But how’d you even know about that trick?”

“I had sisters.” The Commander had responded, almost deadpan but for a slight lift at one corner of his mouth.

Since Cassandra threatened Varghast herding duty for the next person caught pranking, that had put an end to the pranking. For now.

The last gear slid off the crank shaft and rolled away towards the anvil. Anna trotted after it, snagged it before it fell over, and came back wiping her forehead. Even those few running steps had brought a sheen of sweat out around her hairline. She swigged a gulp of water from a full gourd bottle that hung from the wooden pole of the forge’s front awning, then passed it to Dennar.

“I’m still not hearing any proof,” Anna prodded, pawing through the heap for another promising scrap.

Dennar nodded. “Right, well, he came out still getting dressed. Pulling up those fancy leggings. I was hidden in a stack of water butts with a tarp over top, right where I could see. He’d got a tattoo of a mabari wardog on his arse. Like he's saying that’s his opinion of Ferelden. It ain’t right. Besides, that weren’t all. He bent over to pull the tent ropes tight again, and plain as day there was a big snake wrapped around the dog. Choking it to death, like. I tell you, Anna, he talks sweet-like and kills Venatori and claims to be on our side now…” Anna shook her head at him. He slammed the broken axe head he was holding down onto the table, hard enough that Anna’s neat stacks fell over. 

She glared and started to interrupt again, but he raised his voice and kept on, “But you all mark my words good, he’s got plans. If you ask me, the Herald’s like to turn up face down in a sand dune missing all her blood some night, and we’ll be killed in our bedrolls by rage demons afore we find her body.”

“You hush up that talk right now,” Anna hissed. “Half the folk here are here acause they’d noplace else to go, Dennar Margett! Yer own brother in law’s a mage what run away from a Circle. I recall your sister told how he sneezed at a bad moment and lost aim of a fireball. Set the Knight-Lieutenant’s skirts afire. It was scarper or be branded tranquil, right?”

Dennar stared at the table, mouth set in a surly scowl, as he righted the jumbled stacks. “That’s as may be,” he muttered in a sullen tone, “ Mistakes happen. Still ain’t in a league with blood sacrifice.”

“Yer an arse.” Anna snapped, and almost knocked Varric’s inkwell over on her way past for another full crate.

***

 

Soldiers gossip. Varric knew that. He walked slowly along the upper ramparts of Griffon Wing Keep, looking out over the receding curves of dune stacked on dune, fading into the distance. The coming night reddened the brassy golds of the landscape into russet, umber, amber, a brown just a shade paler than dried blood anyplace shadows lay.

You get a bunch of people together in close quarters, he let his thoughts ramble on. You let them understand that tomorrow they may either be in the same tent they currently occupy in the Hinterlands, still scavenging stones from the rubble of burned villages to build fortifications -- or then again they may be marching to Andraste knows not where to be torn apart by demons in a long shot last stand against an ancient magister-turned-godling. 

Eventually they will run out of things to polish, sleep with, sharpen, win money from, repair, get into fistfights with, scrub, cook, break, or get drunk on. Woven through and around all these activities is a constant thread of gossip.

They don't call it gossiping, of course, he corrected himself. Doesn't sound right for a tough group of hardened killers. And never mind that half those steel-eyed warriors keep forgetting what their shield is for, and the other half young enough to be shaving their faces more from wishful anticipation of a beard rather than actual necessity.

Although, he amended mentally, seems like actual hard mercs and killers and pirates can be even worse. He found his thoughts replaying ugly snatches of rumor overhead in the taproom of the Hanged Man tavern, back in Kirkwall. Wagging tongues tend to lead to waving swords when things are this tense, he thought, and then had to stop himself from reaching to his belt pouch for a folded square of parchment to jot the phrase down.

And still, Varric finally let himself admit, gossip aside, a snake strangling a warhound does sound like a perfect cliche of the sinister Vint infiltrator. He reached the end of the south wall and watched the hot coal colors of the desert sunset go gray and begin to shade into long blue sweeps of twilight. Hm. He thought. It does sound like the kind of detail I’d write into my blood mage villain. Which is why I don’t believe it. It would be like tattooing “Death to all you muddy dog lords!” on your forehead. Only a stupid spy would advertise like that. Unless, he found himself wondering, unless he’s even more clever than we anticipated, and he knows that’s exactly what we would think, in which case… no. Shut up, Varric, he told himself. After so many months around the seeker, he realized his inner thoughts now scolded him in a decent approximation of her voice.

The guard on watch at the corner tower saluted him as he passed by. The sleeve of her coat pulled back a little with the motion. Varric caught a dark scrawl of blue ink on the back of her wrist. 

“Nice ink,” he offered, and waited.

“Ser,” she said, holding the salute, fist on breastplate.

“Just Varric.” He took a pull from his hip flask, grimacing at the slow smoky burn of Gray Warden Whisky, and offered it to her.

“I couldn’t,” she said.

He grinned “Sister, I happen to know that the Commander went to lie down with a headache after a long strategy session, and I just saw Rylen heading out with a couple dozen light cavalry and some of the Chargers.”  
The guard relaxed. “Ah, in that case,” She took the flask, gulped a couple quick swallows. “Thanks, Just Varric.”

“So, the ink, is that a Fereldan thing?” he asked, “I’ve seen a few interesting pieces around lately, seems like.”

She wrinkled her brow, then scratched her nose, finding the right words. “I’d say more of a soldier thing,” she told him, “Like this one you noticed, it’s a Ferelden Forder mare running beside a halla.” The dark eyed woman drew back her uniform sleeve to show Varric the whole piece. The style was primitive, yet powerful, dark thick lines implying the planes and hollows of muscle, the sharp sweep of antler, the windblown toss of equine mane. Even though her skin was tanned dark, toughened by wind and sand, the artist had chosen shades of blue and gold that stood out clearly yet complimented her natural color.

“It’s to show that I’ve got friends among the Dalish now,” she explained, “My patrol was in that almighty mess out on the Exalted Plains. Some Dalish archers backed us up when we were in a bad way. Then we helped clear out the risen dead that were scaring off their halla. One favor led to the next, and we ended up sharing a campsite for a few days. Seemed like something worth remembering.”

Varric nodded, trying to seem knowledgeable. “Makes sense. Wouldn’t want to carve just anything into your hide.”

“Maker, no!” She laughed, “It’s too much of a process. At least, it is if you get a real Antivan artist. They’re the best. First you have to soak in a bath of rosewater and the oils of crushed olives to soften up your skin. And then there’s the massage. It’s less painful if you’re not tense, you see…”

***

“The heck did I just listen to…?” Varric mumbled to himself as he took the twisting stone stairway down to the courtyard of the keep. The guard, Talassa, (Tal for short) had given Varric a lot to think about, including a few mental images that were going to be difficult to get out of his thoughts anytime soon, but he wasn’t sure how relevant any of it was.

Well, maybe it’ll blow over, he lied to himself, and went looking for a friendly campfire; preferably one with plenty of bottles handed around, stories being exaggerated out of the believable into the mythic, and ideally, someone who’d never played Liar’s Dice before.

***

By late afternoon the next day, Varric knew the Inquisition had a hatchling rumor problem on their hands. How big it would grow, he wasn’t sure. Deepstalker size or dragon size, rumors needed to be watched and put down quickly if they grew teeth. After all, in his time he'd seen knights die, expeditions succeed or fail, and thrones change hands, on the strength of little more than rumor. 

Everywhere he went in the keep and the outlying camp that day, Ser Pavus’s name was there before him. Or rather, it wasn't. Instead, the people doing the talking called him “The Vint” or “That Magister,” or worst of all, “that damned blood mage.”

He walked the grounds, from the makeshift open air tavern under the low spread branches of a huge deathroot tree, down to the quartermaster’s post in the cool dry dark halls of the basement, or up to the high watchtowers hung with pennants that alternately furled and flapped in a listless wind. At each place, he stopped for a bit to chat, share a drink, and ask for news.

Sure enough each time, if Varric stayed long enough there was at least one person with something suspicious or cynical to say about Ser Sparkler. Sure, the Altus wasn’t the most loved of the Herald’s companions, but until recently the general mood had been settling into one of acceptance and even respect for the mage’s skill and style.

Now, though…

“Heard he’s got a dragon tearing out the throat of Andraste’s mabari tattooed across his entire arse.” 

That one was told by a stablehand to one of the farriers, bent over and swearing as he tried to figure out how to trim dracolisk talons.

All right, well that one was plain ridiculous, Varric thought. Even if you could find an artist to do it, the sheer number of hours it would take… 

“Huh,” Varric responded to the groom, handing him a hoof rasp, “I heard from the Iron Bull that it’s the other way around. You know how he feels about, uh, slaying dragons.” He punctuated the last couple words with a suggestive lift of his brows.

The two men laughed. “Aye, I’ll bet he slayed that particular dragon right thoroughly,” the groom replied. 

“Would that be a bull riding a dragon or a dragon riding a bull, I wonder?” the farrier shot back.

The blue dracolisk laid it’s scaled ear tufts back and narrowed gray eyes at the dwarf. Varric made his excuses and retreated far out of nipping range. In his opinion the only words a riding animal should understand were “go,” “stop,” and “get off of my foot.”

“Well, I shouldn’t let you know this. Could be dangerous,” the cook said under her voice to the crew of servers, “But I heard from the butcher that the Tevinter has been putting the war hounds under a blood magic spell. Or course, he’s got the Herald fooled into thinking it’s a protection spell. But it’s obvious, isn’t it? As soon as he’s got them all bewitched, he’ll snap his fingers like THAT,” she punctuated her story with a slap of her palm on the chopping block, sending a puff of rye flour into the air. “And they’ll all be under his control. Turn on their handlers, no doubt they will. And then tear the rest of us apart after.”

Varric sighed. “Here’s that cinnamon you were wanting last week. I got you some cloves and ferelandris root too. My guy in Kirkwall finally came through for me. Hey, I couldn’t help but overhear, earlier. About the dogs. The Herald actually asked Ser Pavus and Dagna to see if they could take some blood and make phylacteries, like the Chantry does for mages. That way, if one of these big sandstorms blows up sudden, the handlers can use the spell to find their mabari if they get separated.”

“My thanks for the spices, Ser Tethras,” the cook said. “Are you sure? That’s not at all what I heard.”

“I happened to be in the undercroft when the orders came through,” he assured her. “Getting a little upgrade on my girl here.” He patted the stock of his crossbow. “So I heard the whole thing. You know I like to keep an ear to the ground.”

The cook smiled at him, dimples making her sturdy face look almost dwarvenly attractive. “That you do, Ser Tethras. Well, you can’t blame a body for worrying, not in times like these.”

Varric nodded solemnly and stole a rye and sesame seed cracker from the sheet of them just baked. “Well, anybody would get nervous if they saw a mage carry a tray of blood-filled vials past, right?”

The cook chuckled and handed him another cracker.

The truth, Varric knew from overhearing an evening of Dorian’s complaints about Dagna’s methods, was even stranger. The potion involved was actually a new experimental variant on a kaddis paint recipe involving blood lotus, blightwasp venom, and hurlock blood. The Altus was trying to create a kaddis warpaint for the Inquisition and their allies that would work on a mabari hound much as Vitaar worked for the Qunari. Ideally, the new recipe would render the dogs more resistant to darkspawn blood and the taint.

Rumors didn’t work like that, though, Varric knew. You couldn’t replace an insidious but firmly held belief by confronting people with the truth. He’d tried. That just led to new arguments and more enemies. No, you had to tell people something plausibly similar to what they already believed. That way, they could believe that they were not so much wrong as just slightly misinformed.

“Everyone knows he’s under a spell,” he heard Marda, one of the supply sergeants, tell her clerk. “One of the healer mages told me how the blood mages do it. They put a demon in you, and you don’t know it’s there. But then when the time is right, it wakes up and takes over, and BOOM. Abomination, right in the middle of the war council.”

Varric took a breath, tried to figure the angle, spin just the right tale to alter the latest rumor of the day into something harmless. Damn, he realized. That’s actually plausible. After the confrontation with Halward Pavus at Redcliffe, Dorian had told a select few of his companions what his father had tried to do. How he’d tried to alter his son into the person he wanted to fill the role he’d chosen for his heir.

Blood magic changed people, Dorian had explained to them. Usually, into dead people. Sometimes, into dead people with heartbeats, still walking around, screaming inside the silent prison of their own minds.

And demon-possessed mages, abominations, well, Varric had his own history with those. Demons and spirits changed things too. Usually by making them be more on fire or blown up than they were previously.

Shit, Varric realized. This is more than I can handle alone. I need to talk to somebody.

Leliana was at Skyhold, with Josephine. Cassandra was excellent at solving any problem that could be fixed with yelling, hitting, and intimidation. Well, this situation might eventually get there. But Varric wasn’t quite ready to try that way yet. It seemed too much like catching butterflies with a sledgehammer.

“Aw, hells,” Varric swore, and turned towards the series of narrow rickety ladders that rose up the lashed poles of the tall construction scaffolding, “I hate heights. And I really hate it when shit gets weird enough that getting help from Sera actually makes sense.”

***

“Go ask Commander Tight-jacket.” the blonde elf told him, after he got done laying out the situation.

“Curly?” Varric asked, skeptically. He peered over the low railing, down at the fort’s courtyard, much too far below. “He’s not exactly the best at dealing with subtle or political.”

“He’s the realest big person we got, right here, right now, though.” Sera retorted.

Varric shrugged. “Can I get a translation of that into Trade dialect?”

Sera shook her head and rolled her eyes at him. “Look. He’s Commander Fancy-cloak, with the shiny shield. So to all the small folk, he’s big. But he’s a good big, he’s ours. Like a big sword for waving and threatening posh nobs with.” 

She pulled another daisy from the bundle of them she’d crowded haphazardly into a crockery bowl of water. With an underhand toss, she sent the flower spinning down to land near the feet of a trader leading his druffalo through the market section of the yard. The man picked the flower up and squinted into the pale dazzle of the sky, searching for any source of mysterious falling blossoms. Sera ducked down behind a stack of splintery lumber, pulling Varric with her. After another puzzled glance heavenward, the trader shrugged and fed the bloom to his pack beast. Sera giggled.  
“So. Yeh. Curly’s big, but good big. Like Quizzie. Out for the small folk. People remember he’s a farm boy from Nowhere Village. That makes him real, too. Not like most big important people who’re too busy being important to be people.”

“I hope you don’t start talking to Cole.” Varric replied, when he finished working out her meaning, “I can just barely understand either one of you as things stand.”

“No danger. That thing’s creepy.” Sera snorted indignantly. “Anyways, I talk straight. Not my fault if you listen all crookedy.”

***

He decided to let things be for a couple days. Maybe the Herald would get back from chasing Venatori through the canyons. People felt better with her around. In Skyhold, even late at night, folk talked of seeing her often, small green wispglow of the rift mark shining dimly as she paced the wall top, like a night watchman’s shuttered lantern.

He kept busy. There were letters from contacts back in Kirkwall and the Marches to answer -- really answer, not just pretend to reply while he scribbled notes for plot points or made lists of possible political allies. There was his own network of agents to look after. And he kept an ear to the ground in his own way. Nobles opened up to Josephine, the same way that Alienage elves and downtrodden servants did with Sera. Cullen seemed brusque and terse to the point of rudeness, but then Chevaliers and old campaigners amongst the noble houses usually appreciated plain spoken brevity. 

Criminals were tougher to crack. Most of them were willing to talk to the chronicler of the Champion of Kirkwall, friend to the Carta, voice of the Dusters and the Stone-blind surfacers. Often for a price. Sometimes the price was unspoken. Varric chuckled into his tankard of Redcliffe pale ale. Apparently, he thought, I have a way with lawbreakers, smugglers, and unchancy types. Especially if they think I'll make them into a loveable rogue character in my next book.

Ignoring the worried voice steadily getting louder in the back of his thoughts made for a long couple of days. He got more work done in two days and nights trying to avoid hearing rumors he didn’t want to know about, than in the past couple weeks. By then, the mood of the camp had turned ugly. It felt like Kirkwall, like lowtown in the final days before the Arishok and his bunch went amok in the streets.

The tavern tables beneath the giant deathroot tree sat in rings of pale gold light, underneath clusters of metal oil lanterns hung from the branches. The dwarf couldn't avoid noticing that the usual glass globes full of bright blue magelights were conspicuously missing, although a glinting scatter of broken glass dust in the cracks between paving stones hinted at their whereabouts.

The rough plank tables were packed of soldiers, caravaners, and tradespeople drinking themselves into a state where bad ideas sounded like the only sensible course of action. The bulk of the Inquisition’s forces had been in the Western Approach for over three months now. Nearly everyone had a friend or tentmate or patrol partner who had been injured or killed in skirmishes with the Venatori. Whatever opinion each person had held about Tevinter beforehand, their feelings had become more violent. Varric only lasted a couple hours at the least crowded of the wooden tables before he couldn't stand to hear one more opinion about what should be done with all Vints, starting with the Herald’s void-cursed pet Magister. “Where to now, dwarf?” a wagon driver called after him as Varric slid off the end of the bench, his most recent losing hand of cards facedown on the table. “Got no stomach for plain talk about what needs doing?” The man glanced to either side at his crew with narrowed eyes. The other three men and one possibly-a-woman (or stunted ogre) roared laughter on cue.

“Not at all,” the dwarf replied with an insultingly shallow bow, “It’s getting repetitive, is all. With an imagination as limited as yours, there's only so many variations you can come up with as regards ways to use red-hot sharp objects. Besides, speaking of repeating yourself, you run your fingers through your beard every time you sneak another Serpent card out of your coat sleeve. Might want to watch that tell. In Lowtown, it could get a man hurt. Speaking of red hot sharp things. But now you've got me doing it. Repeating myself, that is.” 

He bowed again, and turned, but slowly enough that he saw ogre lady’s forehead wrinkle in anger as her meaty hand whipped out and grabbed the cheater’s wrist in a hard grip. A few cards fluttered down to the table, knocked loose from the gambler’s rig clipped inside his sleeve. Varric smiled a hard, tight lipped to himself as he walked away, whistling a Rivaini oarsman’s shanty. Before he turned the corner into the merchant’s section of the courtyard, he heard the first splintery crack of breaking wood. A bench over somebody's skull, from the sound. 

“Almost enough to make a fellow homesick,” he chuckled as he walked towards the camp. Almost.

 

Varric found an out of the way spot down near the well. He dragged a packsaddle up near the relative coolness of the stone wall, sat, and leaned back with his fingers laced over his stomach and his feet kicked out. He closed his eyes to do a bit of thinking.

He remembered an argument out on the trail between Bull and Vivienne. The topic had been strategy versus tactics. Their conversation had wandered all over Thedas’s history, and involved authors he’d barely heard of. Truth be told, Varric had stopped listening, opting instead to stride ahead and join the Herald and scout Harding in a game of ‘I Spy” that ended with “I spy, with my own eye, something angry beginning with B.” (The answer was, as usual in the south of the Hinterlands, “Bears, with an S, as in plural.”)

But before he’d left the conversation, he’d heard one thought that interested him. “Strategy is what to do in the long term,” Bull had rumbled, irritably, “And tactics is what to do, right now, this instant, when you go on routine patrol and discover your company’s got half the fog warriors in Seheron breathing on your neck.” He’d growled and scratched the base of his horns. “Thing is, some people are good at one, some are good at the other. Don’t find too many who can do both, though. Takes a strange kind of mind.”

“A brutish oversimplification, at best,” Vivienne had called it. To Varric, it was the only part of their conversation that had made complete sense. There were people like Guard Captain Aveline, who never seemed to be caught flat-footed in a scrap, but who always seemed a bit startled by intrigue. And thinkers like Josephine, always so many steps ahead of everyone else that sometimes in war councils Cullen and the Seeker had to drag her mind back to the present moment.

Varric yawned, stretched, and settled more comfortably on his makeshift seat. Hmm. Then of course there were people like Hawke, who seemed able to keep the next few years worth of schemes in his head at all times, and use it as a sea chart to adjust today’s plans accordingly, like a ship trimming sails to account for shifting wind.

Leliana was like that, most of the time. Sometimes the Herald, as well. Under the influence of those two, Commander Curly lately had begun to show flashes of that same strange insight Hawke had been capable of. 

Varric yawned again as the cooler air of the darkening evening wafted across his sunburned skin. He breathed the glassy smell of baking sand, pungent sagebrush, the salt musk of sweaty humans and their packbeasts. He could taste the faint sulfur and acid hint of the hot springs on the wind. A night bird called out her rattling trill.

Sera, he decided, was a weird hybrid of the two types. She followed whatever impulse her “sack of drunk nugs” brain suggested would be funny, annoying, or both, as far as Varric could tell. But a worrisome number of her whims worked out well for the Inquisition in the long term.

Well, the Commander wouldn’t have been Varric’s choice for help on this one. But he was, as Sera had pointed out, the highest ranked Inquisition official they had to hand. He’d even become less hair trigger on the topic of mages, under the influence of the Herald. Varric guessed that having a Dalish apostate for a boss would either change a man’s thinking or drive him mad. Well. Madder.

“Getting pretty desperate, going through official channels like this, Tethras,” he sighed under his breath. Yes. Commander Curly could deal with the whole issue. He’d just rest his eyes for a minute, then go lay the whole problem out over a game of Kallak. For a human, Curly was picking up the Dwarven variation of chess all right. He still played like a surfacer, but admittedly, so did Varric. The night bird called her mate. Pack druffalo shifted and pawed at the dry dirt. The dwarf leaned his head back against the cool sandstone, and slept.

***

When he woke, the moons stood just above the top of the wall. Not too long after moonrise, then. Good. The Commander should be alone by now, but still awake, likely slaving over some inconsequential paperwork that any clerk could handle. 

“I gotta teach that boy to delegate,” Varric yawned, as he pushed off against the wall and rose to his feet. He rolled his shoulders, flexed his knees a couple times, working out the stiffness of sleep. Never knew when you’d have to backflip up half a flight of stairs, all while raining arrows down on the midnight invasion of Venatori scouts riding trained quillbacks or whatever other nonsense the Wastes planned to throw at them this week.

The Commander had perfectly good quarters here at Griffin Wing Keep, Varric knew. They were right next to Captain Rylen’s. Currently they were being used as a combination overflow armory and storage room for medicinal herbs that needed to be kept at least somewhat cool. Meanwhile, Cullen was as usual alternately freezing and frying in a tent down in the main camp with the rest of his soldiers. 

At least this most recent tent didn’t have holes in it. Varric knew, because he’d arranged with Sera, Dalish, and Dagna for all of the current tent’s mildewed and tattered predecessors to meet with “accidents” every time he left the keep for a few hours. There’d been a series of unfortunate incidents involving, among other things, a stampede of nuggalopes, fatal mishaps with the Chargers’ elvhen archer trying to teach some recruits her “traditional Dales-style archery tricks”, and a jar of bees. That last one had gotten a bit out of hand. The flung container of angry insects had hit a lit oil lamp and shattered it. Apparently a bee could still fly a short way while aflame. Being on fire didn’t improve their tempers any, either.

The camp was quiet as Varric strolled through. As quiet as a military camp ever got. A night guard coughed, her armor clinking quietly as she shifted position. Light buzz of snoring, broken by a grunt and sleepy complaint as a tent mate applied an elbow to the offender’s ribs. Horses stomped and flicked their tails sleepily in the picket lines.

The Commander's tent still glowed from within softly, one lamp turning the tan canvas luminous, like moonlight behind clouds. You couldn't knock on a tent, and shouting tended to wake up the nearest camp neighbors. The Dalish, who spent their whole lives in tents and aravels, had taught the Inquisition their solution. Now every tent had a grommet about halfway up one canvas wall, with a cord threaded through. On the inside, resting on the floor, there was something to make noise. Some folk preferred halla harness bells, or hollow gourds full of pebbles. The end that hung outside might simply be knotted, but some soldiers hung wooden carvings, or feather plumes, or even just flat rawhide tags with the occupant’s name inked on. Varric rolled his eyes as he realized that Curly’s bell pull weight was a cast lead war table marker in the shape that meant “Knight, Officer” attached to the leather thong with with a simple knot around the base. The dwarf gave the cord a couple experimental tugs, then dropped the string with a startled jerk of his hand as whatever was on the other end made a raucous clamor that vibrated his teeth unpleasantly. It sounded like a rusty pie pan full of bent tin forks.

“Maker's balls,” the Commander rasped.

Uh oh, Varric thought. That didn't sound like a man annoyed by an interruption to his paperwork. That sounded more like a man who might murder whoever just ruined his only four hours of sleep in the last day and a half.

He turned to go as the sound of rustling fabric gave way to bare feet on sand. There was a muffled thud, some quick clumsy movements rippled the canvas wall, then a long, drawn out crash, as if someone had thrown a sack of cookware on the ground. Or, Varric realized, more like someone knocking over an armor stand loaded with, hypothetically, a mailshirt and full set of heavy plate.

Crouching a bit to disguise his silhouette, the rogue slipped into the deep shadows thrown by a nearby pushcart. He’d wait for Curly to look around and go back to his cot, then take the long way to his own tent, and talk to the man later in the morning. Much later. Maybe he’d bring a mug of strong hot elfroot and spindleweed tea. Even some honeyed apple cakes, if he could find them. 

“My dear man, do you have to do whatever it is you're doing in the middle of the witching hour?” a sleepy tenor complained, just barely loud enough for Varric to hear “Or can you delay it until the Maker-cursed crack of dawn?”

Oh no, the author in Varric demanded, there's no way I'm missing this. He felt a wicked grin spread across his face. Sure, I happen to know a couple ladies and one older gentleman from the Rose who claim they got to see what's under the armor, he thought.But I never heard of anyone staying the night. No matter how loud Commander Curly yells at me, it'll be worth it just to find out who finally got through that shield wall of pure Templar virtue.

His train of thought was cut short as the front tent flap was yanked aside. The Commander ducked out, shirtless, hair mussed into a spill of loose ringlets. He was still adjusting the fastenings of his baldric. Varric heard a jingle of buckles as the man hitched his shoulders to settle the hang of his longsword better against his hip. His boots were laced but not tied, and the top button of his leather trews was undone. The moonlight was bright enough to show the stark lines of his soldier's tan, dark down to the wide neckline of a swordsman’s tunic, and up to the elbows where he usually wore his sleeves folded back in this heat, and southerner-pale everywhere else.

“What! What is it? Are we under attack?” he snapped, looking back and forth for a messenger. Before Varric could move, Cullen turned, instincts honed by decades of survival in sketchy circumstances, to squint at the shadow the rogue was crouched in.  
“Leliana was supposed to tell all of you couriers to stop that cloak of shadows nonsense,” he continued, “So you can quit lurking and come deliver the bad news.”

Varric stood up and sauntered out into the slanting beams of moonlight. “Just wanted to make sure you weren't going to shoot the messenger, so to speak,” he drawled, trying for casual.

The Commander gave a sharp sigh of irritation and pounded a fist into the open palm of his other hand. “Once. It was one time. And I don’t care what Jimm told her, it wasn’t a dagger I threw, it was a decorative letter opener. A gift from Knight Commander Greagoir. Anyhow, he was practically skulking behind my door. Scout Jimm, not Greagoir. Maker’s breath, why are we having this conversation at,” he glanced at the larger moon where it stood below the tower of the keep, just scraping the distant peaks of the mountains along the horizon, “at half past four in the morning, Varric?” he continued in a harsher tone.

“What? It’s just after moonrise,” Varric replied.

The Commander groaned and rubbed both hands across his face. “Tethras. That’s a full moon. In the southwest. In summer.”

Varric turned his head and looked at the larger moon, then back to Curly. “Right.” When no further information seemed forthcoming, he prompted, “Aaannd that means…?”

“I assure you it means moonset,” Cullen groaned, and sat down heavily on the folded wood framed canvas camp stool beside his tent doorway. “Moonset. Which happens near dawn when the moon is almost full. Did you wake me for a lesson in astronomy? I thought you were a surfacer.” He rubbed his eyes again, fingertips digging into the dark hollows of sockets.

“Shit, Curly. Big, blinding, and bad for hangovers means it’s the sun. If it’s big and glowy at night, it’s the moon. Medium and glowy, that’s Satina. Tiny and glowing is usually a star. Huge, glowing green, and terrifying is the Breach, any time of day or night” Varric flipped over a water bucket near Cullen’s chair and sat on it. “Beyond that, I know that wet stuff falling is rain, cold wet stuff is snow, big green scary stuff is demons falling out of the giant green sky hole of unnatural death.” That last remark won him a half hidden snort of laughter from the Commander, as he’d intended.

“Listen, Curly, I may be a surfacer, but I’m a Kirkwaller first and a dwarf second. I keep my head down and my eyes on what’s in front of me. Don’t spend much time staring at what’s way up above me out of my reach anyway. Good way to get a crossbow bolt in the throat, walking around stargazing like Merrill and Anders and H-- like some people did. Do. Yeah. So…”

The commander leaned forward, elbows on knees, eyes on the packed hardpan between the toes of his boots. “What is it, Varric?”

“How much do we know about Ser Pavus, really?” he began. Before he could continue, he found himself the epicenter of a furious blur of motion that ended with his toes dangling a foot above the dirt. Cullen’s fists were clenched in the collar of Varric’s red velvet jacket, his whiskey gold eyes a few inches from Varric’s. The dwarf unaccountably thought of having hot sharp pointy things for the second time that night.

“What have you heard?” the Commander demanded in a flat tone with an underlying hiss like the sound of steel sliding from scabbard.

“Dammit, Curly,” Varric sputtered, “I’ve been doing damage control on this bullshit all week. Rumors. Typical stuff at first. Can’t trust mages, especially not foreign ones. You know how soldiers talk.” Varric dug his fingertips in around the Commander’s scarred knuckles, prying carefully at the larger man’s fingers to loosen his grip. Careful, Tethras, he warned himself. As long as his hands are crushing your jacket, they’re not around your throat. He went on “But these are getting ugly, is all. Arishok kind of ugly. Exploding Chantry, insane Knight Commander lady with an evil magic sword kind of ugly. Get what I mean?”

The Commander looked away, took a long shaky breath, and lowered Varric’s feet to the upturned bucket. “Right. I… I am truly sorry, Ser Tethras. That was unworthy of me, and you. You’ve proven yourself a loyal friend to the Inquisition, at great personal expense. As has Ser Pavus.”

Varric nodded curtly, and briskly brushed the wrinkles out of his shirt with hands that definitely weren’t trembling, not even a little. “Yeah. So about that. I came by to talk in private about these rumors. It’s only gone as far as talking and some mean little pranks, till now. But you know how fast these things can spiral out of control.”

Cullen nodded, swallowed, took another long steadying breath. “Maker help us, I do. Among other things, Ser Pavus is our only inside source of accurate information about the inner workings of Tevinter politics. I can’t...the Inquisition cannot afford to lose him. What do you suggest?”

Varric rubbed his chin, archer’s calluses scraping over the bristles of last night’s unshaven stubble. He let his eyes drop away from Cullen’s intent stare as he thought. Something caught his gaze. He reached out slowly, with thumb and forefinger lifted the wide leather shoulder strap of Cullen’s sword belt to one side.

The tattoo was stark onyx black against the skin above his heart, pale and untouched by sun for years. The edges of the lines were still a tad swollen and irritated. The mabari lay in a watchful pose, head raised proudly, as if on guard. It was drawn in a rugged Avvar style, as if the artist had copied the lines of a hewn stone wardog statue. But the sinuous snake that wound over and around the hound was ornate, almost abstract. The serpent’s head rested trustingly on top of the dog’s front paw, and their tails were interwined companionably, even amorously.  
Varric realized he was staring, and that the silence had grown awkwardly long. 

“New piece? Never seen one quite like it.” He stalled.

It was hard to tell in the dim light, but Varric thought that Curly might actually have blushed. He ran his fingers through the short trimmed curls at the nape of his neck, and shrugged the ram fleece lined leather strap back into place. “No? Well, I do have a few small… that is, the Templar order doesn’t necessarily encourage knights to get work done, but Kirkwall is Kirkwall. Sailors from all ports coming through all the time, bringing traditions from all over Thedas. So. The order doesn’t specifically forbid…” He paced a few steps away, then back, shaking his head. “Andraste’s flame, Varric, again I find myself wondering what any of this has to do with how we can keep our own forces from turning against a valuable ally? I admit, guiding public opinion is more Josephine’s strength. Or yours, in her absence, I suppose. What do you propose we do?

Varric’s mouth felt dry. Probably because it’s been hanging open, he chided himself.

“I’m going to do what I do best, Curly. I’m going to write a book. A sweeping epic romance of two allies from impossibly different backgrounds,” he announced, hands painting pictures in the air as he spoke “It’ll be set against the backdrop of a Thedas torn apart by war and ancient magic, struggling to recover the hope that was lost when their Divine fell into the Fade. It’s going to be the best thing I’ve ever written.”

The Commander scowled, brows knotting in annoyance. “Yes, Varric, I assumed you’d be chronicling these events for posterity, although I’d foolishly hoped for more fact and less fantasy. How is that supposed to help ths situation? And I still haven’t heard any advice on how you suggest I approach quelling these rumors.”

Varric chuckled. “Your part’s simple. Spend some time working on getting a suntan. You’re too pale. It’s not healthy. We can’t have the Commander looking ill -- imagine the rumors that would start!” He patted the heavily muscled shoulder in front of him, and stepped down off the bucket. “No, you need to get out there with the troops. Spar. Wrestle. Work up a sweat. Shirtless. That’s important. Can’t have the Commander passing out from heat sickness in front of the common foot sloggers.”

Varric could feel Cullen’s glare between his shoulderblades, like an arrow aimed from a longbow. “That’s absurd. And totally inappropriate. Why would I do that?”

“If you think that’s inappropriate, wait until you hear step three of my plan,” Varric teased. “You’d do that because we need you looking heroic and tanned when you pose for the painting. You know, the one that’ll be the cover of the book. The one I’m going to write. About the great love that conquered the division between warring nations, and so forth.” He bowed at the waist, low, sweeping one arm behind him in a formal Orlesian Chevalier’s farewell. “Good night, Ser Curly.”

“That is never happening, Varric.” Cullen retorted, “Write your book if you like. I can’t stop you, and it may even help. Andraste knows that people believe the simplistic falsehoods you put in your stories, for whatever lunatic reasons. But leave me out of it.”

“Fine, fine,” Varric laughed, “I’ll let you tell that to Leliana. And Josephine. And worse, the Seeker.” He strode away into the darkened camp, as the eastern sky lightened to smoky gray and dawnstone pink behind him, both hands waving in wide sweeping gestures as he tried out phrases under his breath.

“Fasta vass,” Dorian snarled, poking his head out of the tent into the early morning chill, “Do these savages never let you rest? What was that about, anyhow?”

Cullen rubbed the base of his skull again, and shrugged. “I think… we were either blackmailed, or preemptively rescued from a potential mutiny. I’m not actually certain, to be honest.”

The Altus nodded, and neatened the points of his mustache between thumb and forefinger. “Well. This is Varric. It could always be both.”

Cullen let out a startled chuckle before clapping his hand over his mouth. “True,” he admitted, “Very true. I have the unfortunate feeling we’ll find out from the spymaster soon enough.”

Dorian rested his hands on Cullen’s shoulders, dug his thumbs into the knots deep in the muscles to either side of the spine. “Well. Come back to bed, at least until it’s officially sunrise.”

The leader of the Inquisition’s military forces sighed heavily. “I wish I could. I never have been able to get back to sleep once I’m up, though.”

The battle mage laughed, a deep tenor chuckle that brought a tingle of heat to Cullen’s cheeks, the tips of his ears. “I didn’t say a thing about sleeping, Amatus.” He turned and dropped the rough red wool blanket he’d wrapped around his shoulders. The play of lantern light on the planes and hollows of his lithe form made the tattooed serpent on his lower back seem to writhe around the mabari it embraced in a fashion that seemed to Cullen extremely amorous in nature. (Although the artist had assured them both in his sibilant Antivan accent that the image was merely meant to show an affectionate bond.) 

Dorian paused beside the wide canvas cot, laced his fingers behind his head and stretched, lean sinews standing out under rum-dark skin, then turned to glance back over his shoulder. “Coming, Commander? 

Cullen nearly knocked the armor stand over again as he hurried to comply. 

***

Afterword:

“It looks nothing like me,” Cullen growled, and hurled the slim hardback at the fireplace. It hit the Avvar tapestry to one side instead, and slid down to land on the bear furs piled in front of the flickering coals. Dorian couldn’t help but observe that as a highly trained and gifted warrior, Cullen rarely missed a target he truly wanted to hit.

Dorian bent to scoop up the fallen book from the rug. A folded square of vellum fluttered from between the pages. “Sparkler, Curly, all my best to you both,” he read aloud, “Will be back from the Emerald Graves any day now, or so our Brave Leader assures me. If I see, or more importantly, smell, one more giant, I have vowed to throw up in her bedroll. Which, by the way, Sera is sharing of late. Goes to show you can’t account for taste.  
Enough gossip, though. Here’s the next installment of the Rift War saga. I wanted to call it “Flame and Scale,” but the publisher went with “The Magister’s Lion.” 

Cullen rolled his eyes and muttered something under his breath that sounded suspiciously to Dorian like “Sweet Andraste’s knickers.”

He ignored it, and kept reading the dwarven author’s letter, “Wanted to let you both know that original cover painting for the book was up for auction in Val Royeaux recently…” Here, Cullen groaned and dropped his head behind his forearms onto the pile of supply reports on his desk. Dorian smiled, and kept reading. “Michel de Chavin won the final bid.” 

The muffled sound that came from behind Cullen’s hands was more of a growl than a groan this time, and Dorian’s smile became more of a smirk. 

“That is,” he ploughed on through the next paragraphs of the letter, “Briala and the Empress bought it for Michel as a birth moon gift. Rumor has it that it’s meant as an apology for his loss of the Champion’s post. There’s a story there, and I’ll tell it someday, but first I must finish the tale of the Inquisition, and to do that, we still have an ancient darkspawn demigod to put down. Again. How many times do I have to kill that guy? But I’ve gotten sidetracked.

Point is, it was really the cover art that sold the first book. Well, that and my name on the spine. But to be fair, the artist, Alissette De Malicour, said that the Commander and his Altus friend brought such intensity to every sitting, the painting practically finished itself.

I read where Aliss told the Randy Dowager Quarterly that she ‘felt such heat and passion in these men’s gaze, I imagined that the canvas warmed under my hands as I sketched -- as if the painting might burst into flames!’...” 

Cullen loomed up behind him and snatched the letter from Dorian’s hands. “It does not say that,” he protested, glancing over the page, “Oh. Maker’s breath. It does.”

“Either let me finish, or read it to me instead,” Dorian demanded, “Your voice is more suited to rendering Varric’s dreadful Kirkwall accent, anyhow.”

Cullen nodded, absently. “I’ve known him a few more years than just about anyone else. Fine. Let’s see.” He found his place in the letter. “...canvas bursting into flame…” he looked over the top of the page at Dorian, with a slight lift of one brow.

Dorian waved a hand in a dismissive gesture. “Yes, yes, I may have briefly lost control of my temper and considered, for the slightest of moments, setting the portrait on fire. What can I say? Fire mage first, Mortalitasi second.”

“Of course,” Cullen sighed, “Because the only thing worse than risen corpses is risen corpses that are already on fire from when you set the whole battlefield ablaze.”

The Altus gave a gracious nod of acknowledgement, as if accepting a compliment at a pleasant Orlesian salon.

“Right. Here we are,” he found his place again, “...The point being, as a mere author, I wouldn’t normally see a copper of the profits from the auction. But in this case, since I found the models, hired the artist, and technically owned the actual commissioned portrait, most of the proceeds went to yours truly. Naturally, there were fees that went to the auction house, and so forth, plus the usual palms to grease. But even after my cut, the sale came to a pretty tidy sum.” 

Dorian snorted. “Trust Varric to write to his friends to gloat about how much gold he’s making from a joke that was in terrible taste to begin with.”

Cullen ignored him and read on, determined to finish and move on to the afternoon’s tasks at hand. “I thought, since the royalties from the book series are already making me a rich dwarf, and you gentlemen were such good sports about the whole thing, more or less…”

He stopped, bit his lip, and folded the letter back up. “It says he wants us to share the money from the sale of the painting.” he said. 

Dorian cocked his head and frowned at him. “That’s it? Well, I’ve no objection, if you haven’t. What else does he say? No more gossip, rumor, and scandal?”

Cullen shook his head, and moved to toss the letter on the coals. Dorian intercepted it, snagging it from his fingers as he let it go.

“...good sports about the whole thing, more or less, so I’d like you both to have my cut of the sale. Generosity isn’t usually what people think of when they hear my name, I know, but in this case I’d be honored if you’d consider it an early wedding present-- Kaffas! The nerve of that dwarf!” Dorian swore. “If there’s not sufficient rumor to keep him amused, he resorts to making them up, and never mind who gets hurt. As if anyone would believe such rubbish.” The dull coals in the fireplace roared up into life as Dorian’s indignant anger stirred the Fade around him

Cullen turned away, one palm flat against the door leading out onto the ramparts of Skyhold. “He didn’t. I… may have mentioned in my last letter to Varric...That is... I thought. Well, it doesn’t matter what I thought.” He turned the latch of the battered door, letting in a gust of chill mountain wind. Sparks swirled up the chimney. 

“Fasta vass! You impossible, wonderful, stupid man,” Dorian shouted. “You’re terribly dense, and dull, and I think I may hate you! Just slightly.” He damped down the blaze in the grate with an absentminded gesture, and lowered his voice. “I never said I wouldn’t. If you asked me, that is. It’s just the blasted dwarf says so many blatantly unbelievable things. How was I supposed to know he was telling the truth? For once.”

The door banged shut behind him as Cullen turned. He was at the mage’s side in four quick strides, fingers digging into the lean muscle of Dorian’s upper arms. “Is it so unbelievable that I might want an Altus for a husband?” 

Dorian blinked, eyes glossy and glinting with unshed tears. Always unshed. “No more ludicrous than a Pavus marrying a retired southern Templar of the heretical and scandalous Inquisition. The shame may give my mother the vapors, whatever those are.One may hope. I expect letters of condemnation and exile from the Archon or even from the throne of the Black Divine, with any luck.”

Cullen had been holding his breath. Now he let out a long shaky sigh of relief. Dorian could feel the faintest tremor in the Commander’s hands where they rested on his shoulders. “So you’re saying yes?”

Dorian scowled at him, “Not yet, I’m not.”

“Oh.” Cullen bowed his head for a moment, then nodded. “Take as much time as you need, of course. Whatever you decide.”

The mage fought down and quelled the urge to take this noble, kind, dense man by the shoulders and shake him until his eyes rattled in their sockets. “Cullen. Amatus. You haven’t actually asked.”

“Maker! I’m making a mess of this. My apologies. This is nothing like… I had something planned. Much better than this. Well, that’s obviously not in the cards.” He smiled, the open boyish smile that only a few people among the Inqusitor’s closest companions had seen.

He took Dorian’s hand, and dropped to one knee in the salute of a Templar Knight. “Marry me?” he asked.

“I thought you’d never ask. Literally.” Dorian replied, corners of his eyes crinkling in a hidden smile. “Yes. Of course.” He found himself bent backwards into a fierce kiss that went on until he had to turn his face away and gasp for air.

“One condition,” he said, when he could speak again.

Cullen kissed him again, a quick brush of his lips across Dorian’s. “Anything in my power to give,” he promised.

“Varric has to be the best man. Yours. Mine. Or the ring bearer. Something. Doesn’t matter. I want him in the wedding party.”

Cullen laughed, head thrown back. “That’s easy enough. And fair. He’s done a lot for us both, in his way. Probably more than we’ll ever find out for certain.”

“That too,” Dorian said, “But truthfully, if he’s in the wedding, at least he can’t be taking notes the whole time.”

Somehow they’d ended up kneeling together on the stone floor. Cullen slid over onto the furs, pulling Dorian with him, and they sat, leaning into each other. 

“Is there a certain type of ring you’d like best?” he asked the mage, after a few minutes of companionable quiet, “Since it’s not a surprise anymore, I mean. Drakestone, perhaps, or Stormheart? I’m sure Levallen would even let us have some dragon bone.”

Dorian looked up at him. “Inkstone, I think.”

Cullen frowned in confusion. “I’m not familiar with…” he stopped as Dorian took his hand, gently opened his fingers, and placed both their palms, one atop the other, over the tattoo above Cullen’s heart. 

“Yes, you are. I thought, once, that these markings were the only promise men in our precarious position would ever be able to make each other; to remember.” He rubbed the pad of his thumb, callused by long hours of practice with a staff, over the back of Cullen’s ring finger. “Any ring you like, in any design, so long as we can copy it into our skin so nobody can take it, or deny it was ever there.”

Cullen wiped at the corners of his eyes with a quick swipe of his palm. “Yes,” he said, voice hoarse and low, “I’d like nothing better.” He shook his head and laughed, quietly. “Speaking of ink, just don’t let Varric find out about the story behind it. He won’t rest until everyone in Thedas has a copy.”

Dorian laced his fingers into Cullen’s. “I’m counting on it, Amatus.”

**Author's Note:**

> I write on my phone, since I have no internet at home. I write while standing in line, or sitting in waiting rooms. I write a few lines at a time, at restaurant tables waiting for chicken burritos to manifest, or riding in the car in between conversations.
> 
> My beta reader is extremely busy, so I tried to be choosy about which stories I dumped into her lap. Everything else gets posted in a pretty raw state -- often just proofread around the edges a bit, lightly edited once, and then dumped in you guys' laps instead. 
> 
> Point being, if you see anything you think needs improvement, or any spelling, factual, or continuity errors, or even just have some critique to offer, I won't be a bit offended. Quite the opposite.
> 
> For all I know, these things may contain OTP's known to the state of California to cause mutation in labratory Nugs. 
> 
> I struggle pretty much daily with depression and anxiety. So, I <3 you amazing writers, readers, shippers, artists, video editors, and so on who make up the community here. 
> 
> Just when I'm having a rough day, and start thinking everything I've ever written is awful and should be taken out and shot, someone always comes along and either offers a really insightful comment, or posts a story of their own that inspires me and gets me started on a new piece.
> 
> You guys are the best! Seriously, I think if I accurately expressed how much this AO3 community means to me these days, you would all probably think I am creepy and possibly stalking you, so I will shut up and go away now :)


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